


You Came Back

by Skasha, stealyourshiny



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, Mostly Fluff, mermaid au, pre-fenders - Freeform, tbaa glow bang 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 09:18:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8706694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skasha/pseuds/Skasha, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stealyourshiny/pseuds/stealyourshiny
Summary: Fenris is wounded in a shark attack and is found by a weird surface mer named Anders.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the teamblueandangry 2016 Glow Bang. Art is by Skasha!

As a deep-sea mer, Fenris did not like spending much time near the surface. At night was okay, sometimes. His deep purple tail could blend into the darker waters better then. However, daytime tended to make him stick out a bit in the lighter blue of the surface waters.

Which is why he was very uncomfortable with his current predicament. He and a goblin shark had gotten into a disagreement about whether or not he was edible. Normally the goblin sharks left the mers alone in the deep waters, as most adult mers were much larger than the nine-foot sharks. This one might’ve been feeling lucky, hungry, or it was likely it didn’t realise the tail it was biting belonged to a mer until it was too late. Unfortunately for the shark, it did not survive the mistake, but now Fenris was bleeding, which would only serve to attract many more predators. Being alone in this new area was dangerous. He had no supplies to staunch the flow, which meant that the surface was his best chance before something else found him.

So now he was sitting on a beach, pulled as far from the serf as he could get. His tail looked terrible as he could see it in the sunlight, which hurt his eyes a bit. He tried to pull himself toward some shade, hoping that would keep him covered from prying eyes and any predators that may be near the beach.

The shark’s teeth had ripped sideways through his scales revealing much of the muscle and sinew beneath. It was a bad wound and was bleeding profusely. Looking out toward the water he could see a few fins cutting through, probably following the smell of his blood. He should have brought the dead shark up with him, that would have sent them away. Instead he tried to focus on finding something to stop the bleeding, he could already feel the lightheadedness of blood loss.

There were ferns under the tree and he pulled a few leaves out, wrapping them around his wound, hoping it would stop the flow.

Fenris’ vision began to blur and darken around the edge.

**

Humming. He could hear humming.

Fenris frowned as consciousness slowly returned.

He was… warm. And wet. That made his frown deepen. The last thing he remembered was beaching himself and trying to staunch blood. If he passed out on the beach, he should be dried out. Possibly dead. He didn’t feel dead.

The humming stopped.

“You don’t have to keep pretending to be asleep, you know,” a voice said.

Reluctantly, Fenris opened his eyes.

It was dark. The stars overhead were sparkling. He was sitting in a small pool that was blocked off from the ocean proper with rocks. The water was unnaturally warm and he felt his markings reacting dully.

“Magic,” he croaked. It was then that he realised his tail didn’t hurt.

“Yes, I warmed the water a bit. You lost so much blood your lips were blue when I found you.”

He turned his head then to look at the voice. His night vision was excellent, but the grogginess hadn’t lifted yet. All he could see was a pale upper torso and a halo of pale hair. Movement in the water next to him indicated this was another mer.

“Why?”

“Because warmth would help you while you were in shock?” he saw the mer tilt his pale head to the side.

“No… why did you help me?”

“Oh!” He could see the other mer more clearly now, a bright smile crossing the other’s face. “I come to this beach to open clams and catch crabs. I noticed there were more sharks around and saw you bleeding on the beach, so I came up and healed your tail. You were still unconscious so I rolled you to this cove to keep the sharks away. Are you a deep sea mer? Your colours are so dark and lovely, and your marks are silvery and pretty and they glowed a little when I healed you.”

Fenris closed his eyes again. The other mer barely seemed to breathe between sentences.

“I’m sorry, I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” Fenris was sure he could hear the blush. “My name is Anders.”

“Anders. How long have I been here?”

“Um… probably seven or eight hours?”

He frowned again and opened his eyes. Things were much clearer now and he could see the other mer sitting on a rock near him, his long tail curling into the water and swishing. “What is an ‘hour’?”

Anders’ eyes widened in the dark and his fingers began twisting. He was biting his lower lip, which made Fenris look more closely at his face. He wasn’t unhandsome for a mer, though his limbs were long, and Fenris could tell the surface mer’s tail was longer than his as well.

“Um… it’s… it’s a thing. That surface people use. To tell time.”

“I have never heard of this thing. I have met a few surface mers and they did not say this word.”

“Oh… No, I mean surface people… you know. Land people.”

Fenris stared at this strange mer. He had many questions on the tip of his tongue, the foremost being ‘Were there landwalkers here?’, but he was suddenly feeling lightheaded again.

“You should rest. You lost a lot of blood,” Anders said. He scooted himself closer to Fenris and put his hand into the water. Fenris didn’t like how close he was, and had a snarl ready that died on his lips as the bliss of warm water flowed over his sore limbs again. “You can sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”

He didn’t trust this Anders, but the warmth beckoned him and he felt himself slowly sink back into slumber.

**

The cove the surface mer had settled him in was shaded during the day, which Fenris appreciated. He sat in the water relaxing and stretching his tail, feeling much better. He had looked over his wounds and noticed that there wasn’t even a scar. In fact he was hard-pressed to tell exactly where he had originally been bitten. Still very tired overall, but Anders said he had lost a lot of blood.

He stretched his tail out to it’s full length and winced. The fatigue seemed to be supplemented by a deep soreness in his limbs.

The other mer had gone into the deeper water when he woke up, looking for food. In the sun, Anders had a long blue tail and golden hair and eyes. He could see the other mer swimming closer, carrying something as he pulled himself up onto the rocks again.

“I wasn’t sure what deep-sea mer ate, so I brought clams, oysters, crab, and some fish?”

“Oysters,” Fenris replied, putting his hands out, suddenly ravenous. They ate together in silence for a bit before Fenris threw the shells away and watched Anders for a moment. “You do not seem in a hurry to leave or nervous. I assume there are no landwalkers on the island then?”

“Landwalkers? Oh, the… Um, no. Not here. This island isn’t very big. There’s the trees, but I can swim around it in pretty short amount of time.”

Fenris tilted his head slightly, watching the other mer as he played with some of the clam shells he hadn’t thrown away. “You are different from other surface mers I have met, and you have magic. From what I understand, that is rare among surface mers.”

Anders looked up at him, surprised. “Is it? I... “ He looked back at his shells again, starting to rearrange them again. “I’ve been away from other mers for a long time.”

“Here?” Fenris looked around. The water was full of food, the island was small and apparently uninhabited. It seemed somewhere surface mers would like, despite the ships that came through. He certainly liked the deeper waters around here.

“I found this island a couple days ago…” Fenris noticed Anders was chewing on his lower lip as he rearranged the shells again.

He pretended not to notice the other mer’s surprise at the change of subject and began cleaning his claws. “When will I be able to leave?”

“Um… I don’t know. When you feel strong enough to go, I guess. You should take a few days to rest though.”

Fenris scowled. Days. “You shouldn’t linger here either. I know many landwalker ships come through this way.”

“I’ve seen them, there are lots of reefs on the other side of the island, and a few small caves. Also, it’s so clear here, I usually see them coming from pretty far away.”

*

Over the next day or two, Fenris took a few short swims, stretching his tail. He found himself getting tired very quickly, but continued to push himself. He didn’t like being near the surface and hoped to be gone as soon as possible.

Anders seemed happy to have him around though and chattered almost constantly. It was a bit annoying when he would sit and wax poetic about the reef on the other side of the island with the colours and the sky.

“Trees are so strange looking,” Anders said as they dug through more shellfish. “I wish I could get closer to them.”

Fenris glanced at the tree line behind them and raised an eyebrow. “They are landwalker things. I don’t see why you are so interested.”

“No, they’re natural things. They grow like coral does. The landwalkers cut them down to make their ships.” Anders seemed to notice his strange look and turned another direction. “Oh, look!”

The change was awkward as the other mer pulled a shell out of the shallow water of the rock pool and held it up to the light. Fenris sighed and looked out over the water. In the distance he noticed something moving and frowned.

“Ship.”

Anders dropped the shell, his head snapping in the direction of Fenris’ gaze. The mer began to look around frantically. “Um. There’s a cave. There’s a couple caves, but they’re on the other side of the island. There’s one on this side, I think it’s big enough for both of us, you should be able to swim down to it. We should go now.”

“It’s still pretty far away, but I would like to see the cave,” Fenris replied, tilting his head and watching as Anders began to shift himself over the rocks.

“They can see us from far away!” Anders’ voice sounded strained.

“If you say so.” Fenris carefully pulled himself onto the rocks again and dragged himself over the rocks after Anders, slipping into the deeper water. The other mer ducked below the water quickly and Fenris had to move quickly to keep up with the shimmering blue tail as it swam quickly into the depths.

By the time he caught up to the blond mer, he was feeling lightheaded again. It was hard to catch his breath. Anders waved him into a small cave. He seemed to have calmed a bit now that they were hidden.

“I’m sorry, are you okay? Do you need healing?”

“I am well. Just a short rest.” Fenris rested against the cave wall and took slow breaths. He was feeling more comfortable in the darkness than he had felt in a few days. The coldness of the deeper water wasn’t helping his lightheadedness however.

A moment later he was blinking at a strange, watery light floating over their heads.

“Sorry… I… I don’t like the dark much.”

Fenris squinted at him, taking a bit to adjust. “You are very strange.”

They rested in silence for a while. After a bit, Anders went just outside the mouth of the cave before coming back in again. He did this a few times before he finally came in with a heavy sigh. “The ship has passed.”

“I do not like landwalkers either, but that seemed… rather a strong reaction.” Fenris watched the other’s reaction carefully, seeing Anders flinch and begin wringing his hands again.

“They captured me when I was barely old enough to find my own food. Kept me in a large tank -”

“What is that?”

The other mer makes a face as he seems to try to think of a way to describe what he was talking about. “It’s an enclosed thing made of the same material as those clear holes in the sunken ships. So people can see inside it. They filled it with water and gave me just enough space to swim back and forth…. Well it was just enough room when I was grown, it was more room when I was small. Their magic users studied me. Kept my tank in a deep basement somewhere that was dark, like the deep sea. They only lit it when people came in to look at me.”

A flash of Fenris’ own memory reminded him of a similar experience, but on a much larger scale. He took a deep breath and focused his gaze more intently on Anders.

Anders wrapped his arms around himself, his gaze avoiding Fenris’. “There was one person who started coming down more often. He was a little older than I and sat with me, trying to teach me his language. It was him that convinced those in charge - they called them templars - to move my tank upstairs where there was more light. He also got them to take the top of my tank off so I could stick my head out. By that time I’d been there for two years.”

“What are years?” Fenris was following most of what the other mer was saying but some of the words were unfamiliar to him.

“Um… eight seasons? I hadn’t had my growth yet and barely knew what my claws were for. I couldn’t have reached any of my captors anyway, my arms were too short. The human’s name was Karl and when he realised I had magic he started teaching me how to use it.”

“I have never known a surface mer that could use that heating magic that you did.”

Anders smiled, his gaze meeting Fenris’ briefly. “Karl taught me that after the fourth winter - one of the windows in the room they kept me broke and it took them two weeks to get the glass to replace it. It was so cold and the fireplace didn’t keep my water warm, I started to get very ill and he realised it was because I was used to warmer water.”

“There were many seasons in between then and now, close to fifty. He taught me many things. I tried to escape a few times, though I never got very far, the floors were cold and hard to drag myself over and I never got more than a few feet before those templars would appear. My claws did nothing, their armor was too strong. I finally got away when Karl convinced them to send me to another one of their magic schools, one far away. He was sent with me since I was vicious with most of the other landwalkers. In the night, on the ship, he lifted the cover off of my tank and helped me escape.”

“What happened to him?”

The mer frowned and looked out toward the water again. “I don’t know. I told him to come with me, but he couldn’t swim and told me they’d find him again anyway, regardless of how far away he ran.”

“...I see.” He didn’t really, but he wasn’t sure what else to say to this unexpected trust that Anders had given him. Looking around the small cave, he realised he was sitting in the other mer’s home. There was a seaweed bed and a few little shiny trinkets and shells around the edge. Fenris felt his face flushing a little. He had thought Anders lived on the beach. Which was silly, of course. Mers didn’t sleep on beaches, but Anders had stayed with him in the rock pool every night, keeping it warm for him and watching over him.

“I lived with the landwalkers for a time too,” Fenris finally said, keeping his eyes on the seaweed bed below him. “Further north. They captured me as well. I was kept in one of those… ‘tanks’ you spoke of, but much bigger. Big enough to put other creatures in with me. The landwalker that held me didn’t teach me anything like yours did. I was used for show. He wouldn’t feed me for days and then bring more landwalkers to watch and drop something into the tank with me. I had to kill it if I wanted to eat. Sometimes he would let me eat whatever it was that he’d dropped in, sometimes he’d give me proper food if it was inedible. Sharks, octopods, squids, sometimes landwalkers too. He liked to watch me drown them. If I drowned them faster or slower depended on how well he fed me.”

He could feel Anders’ eyes on him and looked up, surprised to see anger and shock instead of the pity he expected.

“How did you get away?” Anders’ voice was almost a whisper.

“The person who cleaned my tank. A female with red hair. She would sneak me food sometimes… There was a grate with a piece of stone that she would lift to allow new water in and she found a way to break the grate itself, loosening it enough and luring me through with food. After I got there, she lowered the stone behind me, forcing me forward. I swam through the tunnel and found myself eventually in a bay full of ships. It was dark and I was able to dive deeply and get away.”

“How long had you been there?”

“Seasons were hard to track there, it was a very warm place, but I believe it was twenty seasons or so.”

Anders nodded and poked his head out of the cave to look up again. “It’s getting dark, did you want to go back to the rock pool?”

Fenris looked around the cave and then shifted his tail. “I wouldn’t mind sleeping here tonight.”

“It… it would be close quarters. We’d have to curl together…” Fenris could see the other mer’s pale skin turning pink around his cheeks and neck. He smiled.

“I don’t mind.”

**

A routine was settled into over the next few weeks. Anders would bring them breakfast and they’d eat together, then Fenris would exercise for a bit, they would eat lunch, and then spend the rest of the day in the rock pool talking before going down to the cave to sleep.

Fenris was frustrated with his recovery, still starting to ache and feel lightheaded after short swims, but he could go much further than he had the first week. Anders had told him that blood loss took a long time to recover from, even with his magical help, but he wanted to go to his own cave, with his own things.

He had to admit though, as he looked at the blond mer, who was currently laying on the floor of the cave trying to coax a hermit crab out of its shell, that it had been nice waking up with arms around him and tails entwined. He sighed and moved down to Anders. The other mer looked up at him with a smile, which slowly disappeared as he seemed to realise the seriousness of Fenris’ gaze.

“Anders… I think it’s time for me to go.”

Anders lifted off the cave floor, looking a little panicked. “You’re not strong enough yet!”

“I miss my cave and my things, Anders.”

The other mer visibly deflated a little. “Yes, I understand… but you… be careful, please.”

Fenris smiled at him and nodded. “I will. I thank you for your help, Anders.”

“You’re welcome, Fenris.” Anders’ smile was only half-hearted, but genuine. “It was nice having company.”

“...Yes.”

He was ready to go within a few minutes, collecting a little bit of food for the swim back into the depths. The last vision he had of Anders was the mer floating outside his cave.

The swim took him a long time. He kept stopping to rest every few fathoms, but he finally got to the sea floor after what he was sure was over a couple days. It took him another day to get back to his own cave and he sighed in relief at being in deep water again. Fenris ate the last of his rations and happily curled up in his own bed.

There was an itch.

He shifted around and settled back into his bed.

There was a tickle.

Fenris sighed and scratched at the scales before settling again.

He started to fall asleep then, but kept shifting, feeling uncomfortable and sore. He huffed and lifted off the floor, looking around. Something was missing.

Warmth. It was so cold down here.

Blond hair and golden eyes flashed in his mind. A warm smile and laugh.

Anders.

He smiled ruefully to himself and began collecting his small trinkets, wrapping them in a sailcloth he used for his bed. Hunting around the seabed, he collected some food for himself.

It took him a few days, having to rest again on his way back to the surface. The sun seemed to have barely come up by the time he reached Anders’ cave, but the other mer was not there. Fenris put his bag down and swam out, knowing the other mer was probably hunting for breakfast. He slowly swam around the side of the small island, making his way toward the reefs on the other side.

About half-way around he saw Anders, swimming slowly back with his breakfast. He saw Anders glance up at him and then double-take. Fenris smiled as Anders dropped his food and stared for a moment. He felt as the wind was knocked out of him when the other mer shot toward him, wrapping their tails together and hugging him tightly.

“You came back!”

 


End file.
